The anonymous op-ed: Why would The New York Times run an unnamed tell-all article?

Shortly after a New York Times essay called, "I am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration" was posted by an anonymous senior administration official, President Trump responded from the White House.
USA TODAY

New York Times released better-than-expected first-quarter financial results before the markets opened on Thursday.(Photo: Wikimedia Commons (Cebete))

With the publication of an anonymous editorial brutally criticizing President Donald Trump, The New York Times set off a guessing game not only about who the author might be, but also why the storied newspaper would provide a platform for an unnamed source.

In the op-ed, the author, identified as "a senior official in the Trump administration," details concerns about how "the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic."

Anonymous sources are commonly used in news stories, especially in national and international political reporting, but only after careful consideration. It's a rare occurrence when an editorial is published anonymously.

"It’s so much against the traditional ethics of journalism ... clearly it must reflect the Times thinks we’ve got a national crisis, and unusual times call for unusual measures," said Rem Rieder, a former USA TODAY media columnist who now teaches media ethics at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. "That doesn’t necessarily mean it was the right thing to do."

The Times took the "rare step" to publish the op-ed because "we believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers," it said in a statement atop the essay.

The outlet declined to provide additional comment to USA TODAY on the piece.

A primary reason in favor of the Times running the unnamed Trump administration official's essay "was really to show the reasoning that somebody might have for working for an amoral boss," said Kelly McBride, senior vice president at The Poynter Institute. "This is a window into how this individual thinks every day as (he or she) shows up for work."

The author could not put their name to the essay for fear of losing their job and potential retribution, the Times' deputy editorial page editor Jim Dao said on The Times' podcast The Daily. The newsroom "grants anonymity to sources on stories when they feel that those people are in danger of physical danger, of losing their livelihood. Our rules aren’t all that different (for the editorial page)," he said.

Dao recalled the Times has run about four anonymous editorials in the past three years. In this instance, he said, "it was essentially a case of if this person would not be willing to use their real name because they perhaps wanted to remain in the administration to do what they were doing. …. Out of that conversation, we decided that the piece was important enough and strong enough to justify granting anonymity."

In the latest column, which quickly generated a national guessing game over its author after its publication online Wednesday, the official claimed to be among many Trump appointees who have "vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office."

The official reveals that early during Trump's presidency, some in the Cabinet considered "invoking the 25th Amendment," which would set in motion the potential removal of the president because he is unfit for office. "But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until – one way or another – it’s over," the official wrote.

Rieder said he believes the Times seriously considered the official's identity, as well as its message, because eventually the public will learn who the wrote the op-ed. "The credibility of the paper will really be hurt if it turns out it’s not really somebody at or close to the top," he said.

Anonymous sources are not inherently bad, Rieder said. Bob Woodward, who along with Carl Bernstein relied on help from the anonymous source "Deep Throat" in their coverage of the Watergate break-in that brought down President Richard Nixon, has made the point that "actually a lot more bad information has come out attributed to named sources than to anonymous sources throughout the years," Rieder said.

Ironically, excerpts of Woodward's upcoming book, "Fear: Trump in the White House," out Sept. 12, emerged this week to coincide with the Times' op-ed to rock the White House.

But news outlets, in using anonymous sources, run the potential risk that "you can be used because the person is not going to be held accountable," Rieder said. "So they might be playing with the facts to push their own agenda."

The anonymous editorial has historical precedent. Founding father Thomas Paine wrote his Common Sense pamphlets anonymously, while Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay used the pseudonym of "Publius" in writing what would be come The Federalist Papers, their essays about the under-consideration Constitution.

"It’s very Revolutionary war … and early American history," McBride said.

What concerns her is what happens now. Suppose mainstream media outlets regularly began running "really compelling anonymous op-eds on the most contentious issues of the day," McBride said. "How would that change our discourse, and what would that do for the ability to establish in a democracy a common set of facts, which we are already struggling with? That is what makes me a little queasy about the whole thing."

In the days ahead, she said, we will learn whether the anonymous op-ed is "a one-off or if it’s a definitive change in how we do journalism."